INDIANAPOLIS—Vice President Kamala Harris cast her presidential campaign as a fight to defend six freedoms for the American people during a brief visit to the Hoosier State on July 24.
“Ours is a fight for the future,” Ms. Harris told some 6,000 members of Zeta Phi Beta, a historically black sorority of which she is a member, at the group’s international convention.
“We are witnessing a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights.”
In a speech lasting about 12 minutes, Ms. Harris echoed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 “Four Freedoms Speech” to list the issues that define her campaign.
Harris’s Six Freedoms
Ms. Harris listed her six freedoms as the freedom to vote, to be safe from gun violence, to live without fear of bigotry and hate, to love openly and with pride, to learn “our full history”—an apparent reference to controversies over the way in which the practice of slavery and race relations are taught in U.S. public schools, and for women to make reproductive decisions without government interference.Ms. Harris offered policy initiatives for some of the issues that she mentioned.
Regarding gun safety, the vice president promised to fight for the passage of universal background checks for firearms purchases, red-flag laws, and a ban on so-called assault weapons.
Red flag laws enable citizens to petition a judge to order the temporary removal of firearms from individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others.
The term “assault weapons” generally refers to semiautomatic rifles equipped with some military-style features such as a pistol grip, detachable ammunition magazine, and flash suppressor.
Regarding access to abortion, Ms. Harris mentioned the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade and found that there is no federal right to abortion. She said, “When I am president of the United States and when Congress passes a law to restore those freedoms, I will sign it into law.”
Ms. Harris did not offer policy specifics for the other issues that she mentioned but said she would “continue to fight” for them.
President Roosevelt spoke about what he called the Four Freedoms in his State of the Union speech in January 1941. Most of Europe was embroiled in World War II at the time, but the United States remained neutral. FDR spoke of the freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Former President Donald Trump has taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade by his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who were instrumental in the decision. Yet, as a campaign issue, the former president has said he considers abortion to be a highly personal decision and a matter that should be left to the states to regulate.
A 10-year ban on the manufacture of some semi-automatic firearms for civilian use and ammunition magazines defined as high-capacity was passed in 1994 and signed by President Bill Clinton. The law expired in 2004.
Ms. Harris did not mention the economy or foreign policy in her speech.
The Campaign Begins
Ms. Harris is not yet the official Democrat candidate. However, she is widely seen as the likely nominee because several state delegations, including those in Texas and California, pledged their support for her on July 22.According to an Epoch Times tally, the vice president has gained the support of at least 2,574 delegates, well surpassing the 1,976 delegates needed for a win on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Aug. 19.
Ms. Harris ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 but withdrew in December 2019. In August 2020, presumptive nominee Joe Biden selected her as his running mate.
Indiana has favored Democrat candidates only twice in the past 80 years; the most recent time was in 2008. Yet Ms. Harris’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, projected optimism ahead of the vice president’s visit.
“Where Vice President Harris goes, grassroots enthusiasm follows,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon wrote on July 23.
“This campaign will be close, it will be hard fought, but Vice President Harris is in a position of strength—and she’s going to win.”
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority is an international organization that promotes scholarship, service, sisterhood, and finer womanhood. It was founded in 1920 at Howard University in Washington. The organization has about 130,000 members in 900 chapters, according to a sorority spokesperson.
